Installation

Instructions for a supported install of Homebrew are on the homepage.

This script installs Homebrew to /usr/local so that you don’t need sudo when you brew install. It is a careful script; it can be run even if you have stuff installed to /usr/local already. It tells you exactly what it will do before it does it too. You have to confirm everything it will do before it starts.

macOS Requirements

• A 64-bit Intel CPU ¹
• macOS 10.12 (or higher) ²
• Command Line Tools (CLT) for Xcode: xcode-select --install, developer.apple.com/downloads or Xcode ³
• A Bourne-compatible shell for installation (e.g. bash or zsh) ⁴

Alternative Installs

Linux or Windows 10 Subsystem for Linux

Check out the Homebrew on Linux installation documentation.

Untar anywhere

Just extract (or git clone) Homebrew wherever you want. Just avoid:

• Directories with names that contain spaces. Homebrew itself can handle spaces, but many build scripts cannot.
• /tmp subdirectories because Homebrew gets upset.
• /sw and /opt/local because build scripts get confused when Homebrew is there instead of Fink or MacPorts, respectively.

However do yourself a favour and install to /usr/local. Some things may not build when installed elsewhere. One of the reasons Homebrew just works relative to the competition is because we recommend installing to /usr/local. Pick another prefix at your peril!

mkdir homebrew && curl -L https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master | tar xz --strip 1 -C homebrew

Multiple installations

Create a Homebrew installation wherever you extract the tarball. Whichever brew command is called is where the packages will be installed. You can use this as you see fit, e.g. a system set of libs in /usr/local and tweaked formulae for development in ~/homebrew.

Uninstallation

Uninstallation is documented in the FAQ.

¹ For 32-bit or PPC support see Tigerbrew.

² 10.12 or higher is recommended. 10.9–10.11 are supported on a best-effort basis. For 10.4-10.6 see Tigerbrew.

³ Most formulae require a compiler. A handful require a full Xcode installation. You can install Xcode, the CLT, or both; Homebrew supports all three configurations. Downloading Xcode may require an Apple Developer account on older versions of Mac OS X. Sign up for free here.

⁴ The one-liner installation method found on brew.sh requires a Bourne-compatible shell (e.g. bash or zsh). Notably, fish, tcsh and csh will not work.